


Phoning Home

by eightbitbat



Series: Anywhere I lay my head [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Human Castiel, M/M, Post Episode: s08e23 Sacrifice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-27
Updated: 2013-05-27
Packaged: 2017-12-13 04:11:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/819823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eightbitbat/pseuds/eightbitbat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He had seven dollars to his name, no phone, no angel blade.  He sipped his coffee and thought, what would Dean do?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Phoning Home

**Author's Note:**

> A million fans and a million thoughts of what happened after the end, so here's one more.

Castiel knew what feelings were.  Even as an angel of the Lord he could feel, which in retrospect was probably the source of so many of his problems. 

He was unprepared, however, for the full impact of them.  He was unprepared for all of this, since it wasn’t his idea to become human.  He’d been depowered before, and had to admit he’d toyed with the idea of falling all the way and leaving Heaven behind, but this, this was not by choice.

Castiel spent his first hours as a human watching the rest of his family fall from Heaven, burning trails across the night sky.  He spent his first hours crushed under the full weight of human emotion, starting with grief, anger, guilt, anguish, and despair.  He stared at the sky until his knees gave out beneath him, and then knelt there on the dead leaves until he was stiff.  Eventually the sun rose and Castiel could no longer see his brothers and sisters falling.  He knew he had to get up, get moving, do something.  Do anything.  Find Dean.  Yes, he had to find Dean.  The hunter would likely be angry with him again, angry that Castiel had charged off to Heaven and ended up at the mercy of Metatron.  Had he just stayed with Dean, he would still be an angel, and his brothers and sisters wouldn’t be burning up as they hit atmosphere.  He’d had to try, though.  He broke Heaven, and he would have tried anything to put it back together again. 

Yes, Dean would be angry, but might understand anyway.  It was Castiel’s family.  Family meant everything to Dean Winchester.  Dean was Castiel’s family, too, though not in the same way.  He knew, though, that if he could just find Dean, find Dean and Sam, that somehow they could figure this out.  At the least, he needed Dean to know what he’d done, how he’d played into Metatron’s hands.  Dean deserved that much.

Castiel walked until he found a road, and then followed that road until he came to a town.  There were a few small restaurants and coffee shops along the main boulevard.  Castiel dug in the pockets of his trench coat and discovered he had a few crumpled bills left.  He decided it would be good to sit (his vessel’s feet – no, his feet, hurt), drink some coffee, and try to figure out how to get ahold of Dean.  He avoided the Biggerson’s. 

The waiter brought him his coffee and he took stock of his situation.  He was…somewhere.  Looking over the restaurant’s menu, Castiel saw their address was in Junction City, Oregon.  Near the coast, then.  The last he knew, Dean was in Kansas, half a country away.  He had seven dollars to his name, no phone, no angel blade.  He sipped his coffee and thought, what would Dean do?

He glanced around the coffee shop.  At the table next to his, a young woman was playing a game on her mobile phone.  Castiel knew in an instant what Dean would do. 

“Excuse me, miss?”

The girl looked up and he flashed his best Dean Winchester-esque smile at her.  Her cheeks flushed and she smiled, looking away for a second and then back at him.  “Yeah?”

“Could I possibly borrow your phone for a moment?  I need to make a quick call. Would that be too much of a bother?”  He tried to make his voice as smooth and charming as he’d heard Dean do a thousand times. 

The girl’s cheeks grew pinker.  “Uh, yeah, sure.”  She smiled bigger and handed over the touch-screen phone in its pink case.  Castiel thought about winking at her, it was something Dean would have done, but he wasn’t sure he could pull it off in the same way.  He didn’t realize that his blue eyes and smirk were just as effective.

Castiel poked at the device.  He was used to the basic phones Dean got for him in gas stations, not something this fancy.  Still, he’d seen them used before, and he was able to get to the dial screen without too much trouble.  He tapped in the last number he had for Dean, hoping it was still current.

“Yeah?”  Dean’s voice.  The number worked.  He could feel relief flowing through his veins like cold water.

Now that he had gotten ahold of him, he wasn’t quite sure what to say.  Other than not saying he was sorry, even though he was.  He managed to force out a simple “Dean.”

“Cas?!  Cas, is that you?”

“Yes, Dean, it’s me.”

“Holy shit, man, I thought you were dead.  The angels…”

Castiel sighed.  “Yes, I saw.”

“You…saw?  You weren’t one of them?  Or were you with…?”

“Metatron?  No.  I was cast out of Heaven before the angels fell.  Metatron ripped out my grace as the final piece of his spell to break Heaven.  Naomi was right.”  The words spilled forth too quickly, and they felt like acid on his tongue, but he had to confess the truth to Dean, his part in this whole mess, as soon as possible. 

“Wait, he what?  He ripped out your grace?”

“Yes.  I’m…I’m human now.”

There was quiet from the other end of the line for a long moment.  “Metatron.  Fucking creepy bastard.”

“Yeah, you could say that.”  He shoved down the despair that rose again and tried to focus.  “Dean, I don’t know what to do here, and I know I’m not any good to you anymore.  I just wanted to let you know what happened upstairs.”

“What do you mean, you’re not any good to me anymore?”

“I’m not an angel anymore.”

There was a bit of a choked sound from Dean on the other end, which Castiel didn’t know how to interpret.  He regretted not being face-to-face with Dean for this conversation, where he could try to glean extra meaning from the hunter’s eyes.  Finally, Dean spoke. “Cas, man, I don’t care if you’re an angel or not.  I’m just glad you’re alive.  Where are you?”

“Oregon, some place called Junction City.”

“Do you have money?  ID?”

He rummaged in his pockets again.  “Money, not really.  ID…yes, I have some that you gave me.”

“Okay, here’s what we’re going to do.  What’s the name on the ID?”

“Stephen Stills.”

“Okay.  I’m going to wire you some money in that name.  I’ll send you enough for a bus ticket out here.  You need food?”

“Yes Dean, I am human now.”

“Right, right.  Look, you’ll need to take the bus to Lincoln, there isn’t really a stop closer.  When you get there, call me and I’ll come pick you up.”

“I also need a phone.”

“What, you on a pay phone or something?”

“The girl next to me let me borrow hers.”

“Did she now?  Flirt.” Dean sounded amused.  “Okay, a phone too.”

“Where are you?”

“Lebanon.  Though at the moment, the hospital in Lebanon.”

Castiel felt a moment of panic.  “Hospital?  Are you okay?”  Then he remembered where he’d left Dean before going to Heaven last.  “Is it Sam?  Is he okay?”

“Sam’s a mess.  He didn’t complete the trials, but it was a close one.  We’ll be here for a few days more, I’m sure.”

“I’m sorry, Dean.  I’m sorry I can’t come there and fix him.”

“It’s okay, Cas.  Just come.  That’s all I need you to do right now.”

The call ended and Castiel handed the phone back to the girl at the next table.  She smiled at him again, and said something about him joining her for more coffee, but he shook his head and left his cash on his own table.  He had somewhere else to be.

 

* * *

 

Castiel picked up the money Dean had wired him.  The name on his forged ID made him both happy and sad.  Dean had given these to him after he’d gotten back from Purgatory.  They’d gone hunting together, and he’d felt something like freedom.  Of course, that was before he’d discovered Naomi had her fingers in his brain. 

Once he had the cash, he used most of it to buy a bus ticket.  He also picked up a phone and filled his pockets with what he thought of as Dean-road-food, mainly protein bars and jerky.  He treated himself to a cheeseburger before his bus left.  He remembered them fondly from when he was under the influence of Famine, and as he sunk his teeth into one, he thought maybe there were some upsides to being human after all.

The bus ride was long.  Really long.  Thirty-six hours long.  Castiel had ridden the bus before, but he’d either been an angel or just a de-powered angel, and the time hadn’t mattered.  This time, it was different.  He got hungry, and tired, and hot, and bored.  He was exhausted but didn’t feel comfortable sleeping amongst so many strangers.  He grew overheated, and then remembered that his ves-he was dressed in layers, so he pulled off the two jackets.  His face itched as hair grew in, an uncomfortable reminder of Purgatory. 

When he was a few hours out from Lincoln, Castiel texted Dean the details of his arrival.  The phone had been one of his few sources of entertainment for the last thirty-two hours, so he had become fairly familiar with it.  He’d seen others on the bus using their phones, mostly for texting, so he thought he should try to adopt human traits as he saw them.

The bus pulled in just after noon.  Castiel was stiff and exhausted, and very glad to be off the bus.  He knew he’d just be getting into the Impala and driving again, but this time he’d be with Dean, and that was infinitely better than on a bus of random strangers.

As soon as Castiel stepped foot off the bus, he saw Dean, leaning against the hood of the Impala with arms crossed, waiting.  He walked over, his coats thrown over one arm, the sleeves of his dress shirt rolled up against the heat of the day.  He went slowly because he wanted to try to gauge Dean’s mood and attitude towards him.  He felt like they’d been in a good place in the bar, and Dean had sounded fine on the phone…but he knew Dean was very good at hiding things like anger and resentment when he felt like it.

When Castiel drew near, Dean gave a little quirk of the mouth, almost a smile, and then swiftly stepped forward and wrapped his arms around him, just as he had in Purgatory.  This time, Castiel didn’t feel awkward and unworthy, so he wrapped his arms around Dean’s waist and buried his face in his shoulder.  For the first time since the sun rose after the night his grace was taken, he felt a sob wrack his body.  Dean gripped him tighter and muttered some sort of soothing nonsense in his ear.   

He turned his head just a bit to the left, letting his cheek press into the skin of Dean’s neck.  Having his grace torn from him was devastating, and being human was going to take a lot of adjustment, but if he was with Dean, Castiel thought that maybe it might all work out after all.


End file.
